Sunday, January 3, 2010

Central Ohio Hoops Scene

Earlier today, Scott Bradley's New Birth Warriors defeated the Dublin Rocks by a score of 45-35. The 10 point victory avenged an earlier loss to the Rocks a couple of weeks ago. The second time around, the Warriors' press wore down the Rocks and limited their ability to hit late game shots. Although New Birth had hoped to meet Dublin in the championship game of the Capital University Holiday Tournament on Thursday, the Warriors were defeated by a very talented Ohio Warriors squad in the quarterfinals. The Ohio Warriors went on the win the tournament by soundly defeating Dublin by 20 plus points in the championship game. The leading scorers from New Birth were DJ Tyree (13 points), Tyrell Carter (11 points), Jalen Tate (9 points) and Jalani Rogers (5 points).

All-Ohio (6th Grade) Tryouts

I stopped by the USA Sports Academy today to get a peek at some of the kids trying out for the All-Ohio 6th grade team. About 12 kids worked out for a couple of hours. Over the course of the workout, Lima's Warren Pughsley ran the kids though a number of drills before finishing up with a scrimmage. From what I saw, the team should be very competitive this spring and summer. Some of the better players I saw (or heard about) and are most likely to make the team included: Xavier Simpson, MarcusDempsey, Aaron Thompson, Trey Cobbs, Brandon Peters, Cameron Copeland, Jagger Epps and Nick Taflinger.

Tournament Champions

While checking out the All-Ohio tryouts, I caught the tail end of the USA New Year's Holiday Classic championship game. Congratulations to Jerry Francis' 3rd grade USA/JFYF All-Stars (Pictured) for claiming the tournament title. The 5-team tournament included teams from Dublin, Gahanna and Springboro. Some of the standout players included: Jordan Whitehall, Alvin Bird, JadenLipscome and Jeremiah Francis. Although Buckeye Preprarely covers kids so young, we thought everybody needs a little love, and a championship of any kind deserves recognition! Good job little fellas!!